VOLUME 19, NUMBER 1
A wild gift from the West: two grizzly cubs
From the Research File
By Gaye Wilson
BEARS LIKELY were not uppermost
in President Jefferson’s mind in late
October 807. There was the escalating
war between England and France that
had engulfed Europe and threatened
the neutrality, commerce, and domestic
security of the United States. There
were the questions of coastal defense
and whether the United States should
attempt an invasion of Canada if negotiations with Great Britain broke down.
But then a gift arrived for the president from the explorer Capt. Zebulon
Montgomery Pike: two grizzly cubs.
The bears arrived at about the same
time as Pike’s letter explaining that
he had acquired the male and female
cubs in the southern region of the great
Continental Divide. An expedition led
by Pike had explored along the Arkansas
River and then, either knowingly or by
error, had crossed into Spanish territory. Pike and his men were arrested
by Spanish authorities and taken first
to Santa Fe, then Chihuahua. Pike was
being escorted back to U.S. territory
when he purchased the cubs from a local
inhabitant. Pike recognized that the
grizzly was a different species of bear
from that found in the East and noted
in his letter to Jefferson that they were
“considered by the natives of that country
as the most ferocious animals of the
continent.”
Jefferson must have been aware of
that reputation, as he would have heard
first-hand accounts of the western
grizzly from Meriwether Lewis and
William Clark, who had recently been
in Washington following their expedition to the Pacific. Jefferson always
was intrigued by any bit of knowledge
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Explorer Zebulon Pike sent
the “most ferocious animals”
to Jefferson.
Library of Congress
about the vast and mysterious western
territories, but apparently he made a
speedy decision regarding the bears. In a
letter to his granddaughter, Anne Cary
Randolph, he mentioned the arrival of
the grizzly cubs from Pike and stated
flatly, “These are too dangerous and
troublesome for me to keep. … I shall
therefore send them to Peale’s Museum.”
Charles Willson Peale, artist and
devotee of the natural sciences, was a
friend and correspondent of Jefferson’s.
In 786 he had opened a museum in
Philadelphia that displayed portraits
he had painted of American notables
(including Jefferson) along with a varied
and growing collection of natural history
objects. Peale had one brief experience
with a live grizzly, which had been
brought to Philadelphia by a French
trader. In March 804 Peale advertised
that the “Famous Grisly Bear” would be
on display at the museum for two weeks.
But the grizzly, estimated to be two
years old, proved too dangerous: It broke
its chain and cage, and was put down.
In writing to ask Peale to if he would
take the two bears, Jefferson stressed
that they had been taken as cubs, were
“perfectly gentle” and “appear quite good
humored.” Jefferson added that they
didn’t eat much, primarily “Indian bread,”
and could be of interest to visitors to the
museum.
Peale wrote back: “This charge I will
cheerfully undertake.”
Jefferson must have greeted Peale’s
response with enthusiasm, but it took
almost two months to get the cubs, one
male and one female, on their way to
Philadelphia. Meanwhile, the bears
outgrew their cage and apparently spent
some time in an enclosure on the lawn
of the President’s House. No doubt
some passers-by enjoyed seeing the grizzlies, but this gave Jefferson’s political
opponents the opportunity to gleefully
refer to his “bear-garden,” a term going
back to Elizabethan-era bear-baiting
arenas that still carried a connotation of
a rough, noisy area lacking any sort of
decorum.
When the two grizzlies were
delivered to Peale on Jan. 28, 808, he
immediately set about securing a large
cage for them, and expressed hope that
they would eventually breed. He knew
from a bearskin given him by Lewis that
grizzlies could grow to be quite large.
“We hope to see them get their full
Continued on next page.
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Grizzly cubs
Continued, Page 2.
groath,” Peale wrote to Jefferson, “& also
to ascertain what they may weigh when
they acquire their full size.”
As these bears had been with humans
almost from birth, the expectation
seemed to be that they would adapt
well to captivity. But this was not to be
the case. As they matured, they became
more threatening. It is not clear how
long Peale had the bears before one of
them broke out of its cage and, after
terrorizing the Peale family, was shot
in the basement kitchen. The other
bear was put down as well, then both
were mounted and placed on display in
Peale’s museum. In this manner they
fulfilled Peale’s goal of informing visitors
to his museum about the great western
bears.
Perhaps they provided another lesson
as well. Though raised by humans, grizzlies could not be tamed and would live
up to their reputation as “the most ferocious animals of the continent.”
Gaye Wilson is a research historian at
Monticello’s Robert H. Smith International
Center for Jefferson Studies.
Titian Ramsay Peale based this 1822 book illustration on the
bears that were mounted in his father’s Philadelphia museum,
the same bears that Jefferson had presented to the museum as
cubs in 1808.
American Philosophical Society
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